Month: June 2015

An ancient book, a house crumbling into the ocean, mermaids, tarot cards, family legacies and the traveling circus. These all set the stage for Erika Swyler’s debut novel, The Book of Speculation.

Simon Watson, a young librarian whose mother was a mermaid in a traveling circus before she drowned, receives a mysterious, old, water-damaged book in the mail. Through this, he slowly uncovers a family legacy of women who drown, always on a specific date … and as that date nears, Simon’s sister, who ran away with a circus, returns and begins to act peculiarly. Has their family been cursed? Are the women mermaids? Do the tarot cards foretell his sister’s fate?

I enjoyed reading The Book of Speculation. It was mysterious, magical and a little dark. I had to put it down at times to get away from the story, but would find myself thinking about the story line before long and pick it back up again.